Nicodemus Power

Her biggest project is the clockwork spiders – a swarm of black metal machines about an inch in size. When her first boyfriend dumped her, Donna took all her feelings for him and forged them into dark steel. A small gear of this metal sits in the mechanism of every spider. She intended to use them to punish the guy for mistreating her. But with her feelings gone, she felt no reason to go through with it. Now, the hundred spiders are kind of pets to her. They can obey simple commands, and are about as intelligent as a moderately bright dog. Where they excel is finding their way into or out of places.

The original batch – 89 black metal spiders – have notches cut into their forelegs. The left leg can be used as a key to open the ‘box of memories’ which she keeps in her bedroom. They can also be used to cut soft things. A team of a dozen spiders could, if carefully instructed, manage to cut cold meat and make Donna a sandwich.

Two dozen more attractive tin spiders were added to the swarm at a later date, with curved bodies rather than the squat rectangles of the originals. Lately, she has been using different materials, including some coppery-coloured ones. There is even a spider made from real gold in the house somewhere.

Donna currently has an unknown number of spiders, one or two of which travel with her everywhere. She’s made about five hundred in total, most of them were left behind in her previous home towns, and are constantly moving towards her. Occasionally, one will arrive and rejoin the group. Some have undoubtedly been destroyed.

When she calls them, all the spiders will try to reach her as quickly as possible. Outside her immediate attention, they tend to try to find their own space, slowly moving towards where Donna is at present. They don’t need to eat, and are charged by some kind of ‘natural energy’ in the air. As far as we know, this energy is spread thinly, so if there are 2 spiders close together (in the same room), they can’t charge properly and only have charge for 20 minutes of activity or a few hours of idleness. They can also repair any damage to themselves, somehow collecting rust and transforming it back into metal.

Besides her clockworks, Donna has one other important item. Her “Box of Memories” contains mementos of things she does not want to forget, as well as an assortment of jewellery and a broken hearing aid. Two of her mother’s posessions, a crucifix and a crystal ball, sit in the box.

She also has a large collection of diaries, an external memory to compensate for what she has lost through her clockwork magic. She writes each day in a pad of paper, the kind designed for ring-binders. Every 5-6 weeks, she gets a bundle of 500 pages bound properly so that they don’t fall out or get lost. Her bookcase looks quite impressive, until you realize that every volume is filled with her own rounded-yet-cramped handwriting.